Undead – Kirsty McKay

“I would rather die than face them all again. Die horribly. In a messy, fleshy, blood ‘n’ guts kind of way. It is a total no brainer.”

Meet Bobby. Dragged back to England six years after being dragged to the US she feels like she doesn’t fit in anywhere and what’s more, her new classmates are confirming her feelings. They take the piss out of the way she speaks, the words she uses for things and her in general. So when they are on the way back from the hell-like school skiing trip its no surprise that Bobby stays on the bus, trying to stay invisible. Bobby gets more than she bargained for when it turns out she and Smitty, the school “hard-ass,” are the only ones around when the class all come down with a serious case of the Undead.

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I wasn’t sure what to expect from Undead. I knew the subject matter but wasn’t sure how it would work with me as it was my first zombie book – I know, I know! But seriously, I really feel that Undead was written brilliantly and really did good on the whole zombie thing. There was humour, suspense and serious “argh wtf?” moments!

I loved how you were thrown straight into the story, now long drawn out character building or anything; you pick up Bobby and Smitty’s characters as you go on, as well as some of the other characters’.  It was pretty much within the first ten pages that you know that Bobby’s classmates are dead and there’s something seriously weird going on. Because of this the whole book was action packed and I loved it. The story was full of reasoning and the conclusion was just shocking. Not to give anything away but it was awesome and I loved the way everything panned out so well!

The character development was brilliant. As I say you are thrown straight into the story so you start finding things out about the characters as the story goes on. You know Bobby is different right from the get go but you learn more and more, and realise that her unhappiness is not just because of the treatment by her fellow classmates but there is something more, something deep that is gnawing away at her.

I loved Smitty... he was awesome, a real bad ass who was into decent music and snowboarding... he actually sounds like one of my exes! Haha. But at first he just seemed cocky, like he just wanted to mock Bobby but he soon changes his mind and though they bicker, its more like flirting. I like that he lets his guard down in places throughout the book but he doesn’t change character completely.

That was another thing I loved about this book, the chjaracters were snarky and bad-ass and in some cases couldn’t stand each other but they didn’t actually change... they were the same guys at the beginning and the end... especially Alice. Wow, I would have fed her to one of those zombies pretty early in to the book had it been me!!

As my first Zombie book I really don’t think I could have chosen better. Undead was hilarious; handling zombies like you want them to be handled and making great references to TV shows and Movies. I loved that Bobby nicely points out that if she were at home watching a movie she’d be screaming to the character to run the other way, it justified her actions and I think there was a lot of that at play in Undead... nothing was sporadic, it was planned but definitely not in a way that made it boring!

Undead will be published by Chicken House books in September 2011. Thank you to Vickie at ComaCalm’s Corner for lending me her proof copy.

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